Completion
by Centrau guardian
Summary: All it takes is one word to ruin a lifetime of work and suffering. One word to make him question everything he's done and been through. SPOILERS for AC:2, no further. No pairings.


SPOILERS: For the end of Assassin's Creed 2. It's fairly vague, but you still might be a little peeved if you haven't finished it...

I'm a bit late to the game with Assassin's Creed, but I've fallen rather quickly in love with the whole premise. Having waited to finish AC:2 before I started on brotherhood I don't know how Ezio actually reacts to everything that happened, but I felt an urge to write a little bit of my own impressions.

(PLEASE! If you review don't post any spoilers for Brotherhood or Revelations, I'm really looking forward to playing them and rather not have them spoiled beforehand! *careful avoidance of internet forums* X3)

Hope you enjoy!

It takes a long time to sink in. A long time stood in a room with seemingly endless proportions, lines shimmering with light in every direction. A long time waiting in hopes she might come back, might undo the devaluation of his entire life.

A long time where his breath slowly begins to catch while his chest heaves with despair.

He could wait an eternity and she would never return, he knows it already. She'd dismissed him almost from the very first moment, directing her words into the distance as he blindly set it aside as a mere curiosity. He'd been confused at first, as she continued to ignore him, even scolded him like a child if he tried to ask what was going on. He'd frowned as she turned sharply away, a condescending air to her posture as she set him aside.

After everything he'd done. The time he'd given up, the wounds he had suffered.

The people he'd killed.

And all for just a precious moment before he was cast aside, worthless.

He could hear screaming, somewhere in the distance. A roar of pain and fury that rang in the empty room, walls still fluctuating, somehow mocking him even now. It was only the rawness of his throat that made him consider it might be him, that the heartbroken, defeated noises might be coming from somewhere deep inside of him. A part carefully stifled in his chest these past years as he desperately forged on. It had never been easy. Killing another man simply wasn't meant to be easy. But there was a point where it had become forgivable; just another part of getting vengeance for his family, another part of saving the people, of freeing them from their misery. When it had seemed like it was part of a greater purpose; that was the moment when he'd nearly reconciled with himself. It had felt like divine powers had already forgiven him, had already permitted him to commit these acts of murder.

And with one word she'd taken it all away.

"Desmond."

Who was this person he had been tossed aside for? Who was it she gazed into the distance for, recounting the tale that he'd been unable to understand but had taken to heart anyway. Who was it who had taken his entire life's meaning away in such a single, brutal moment?

And why had they needed him, Ezio Auditore, in the first place? If it was someone else they had wanted all along, someone else who hadn't even been present when all of this was going on, why had he been the one forced to give up everything for it? Perhaps he would have done something different after his father's death. Instead of devoting his life to the cause, to becoming the murderer he now was, perhaps he would have been able to find peace, to have settled somewhere with a beautiful wife and born children from her.

Even as he thought it he could feel his own laughter bubbling up from within.

Whatever this life might have stolen from him, it was hard to admit that he liked the man he had become.

He stopped screaming with outrage then, buckling to his knees on the floor. The wound in his stomach ached with the movement, a slow trickle of blood still seeping sluggishly into his assassin's robes.

He detested the fact that he had to murder people. He really did. But there was a part of him that calmly pointed out that he had only ever killed those who brought harm to others. He'd been courteous at every moment, strong against the temptations to simply get his own way and race through the streets doing whatever he liked. Civilians had respected him, after they had gotten over their initial fear of the man who brought death among them. They had recognised his care, the way he avoided hurting them and took those who made their lives hell out of this world. They had disliked the murder, but he had heard whispers among them about how he had brought a better life to their cities.

It had made him proud. Given him a sense of purpose and fulfilment when he saw the thankful faces of those he had saved or helped in any way.

He would do it all over a thousand times to see them smile that way again.

Perhaps without the death of his father though.

A wry chuckle escaped his lips, and with a deep sigh he hauled himself to his feet. It felt like he had aged during her speech, his muscles ached with fatigue and his eyelids felt heavy on his hanging head. Distantly he noted that he had lost a lot more blood than he should have and wouldn't Leonardo give him a fine haranguing for that!

Limping slightly, hand pressed to the sticky, damp patch of his stomach, he began to slowly make his way out of the room. Exhaustion dogged every step, a sense of depression falling over his shoulders as he remembered vaguely all that had happened in the room. However much he knew that this life was his, that he had enjoyed it in a strange way and would be loath to give up the friends he had made, it still pained him that in the end, he hadn't really been the one that had mattered.

He almost collapsed as he pushed against the door, stumbling as it swung open, only to find himself stopped seconds from hitting the floor by several pairs of hands. Blinking, he looked up into the faces of the men and women who had helped him along the way, faces that smiled at him even as some of them wept as they glanced at his wound.

And the strong face of his uncle, grinning at him as if he had right all the wrongs of the world.

"You did it, my son!" His uncle whispered fiercely, even as he sunk into darkness. "You did it!"

The last thing Ezio knew was the tender unfurling of emotion in his chest, soft wings caressing his soul and gentling the pain there.

Perhaps he wasn't the one they had sought, but he was the one that had saved his people.


End file.
